On August 30, 2007, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, enacted its antitrust law, literally translated "Anti-Monopoly Law (the Law)." The Law, which will take effect on August 1, 2008, is comprehensive in scope. Because some of its key provisions are open to multiple interpretations, it remains to be seen how it will be implemented and interpreted in practice.
Background
Even though China had launched its economic reform program in 1978, it was not until 1992 that China began to accelerate its economic reform. In 1992, the 14th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party declared the main goal of China's economic reform was the establishment of a "socialist market economy." In an effort to reach this goal, China began drafting the law in 1994....
Specific Questions relating to this article should be addressed directly to the author.
On July 23, 2010, the Third Circuit in "Race Tires of America, Inc., et al. v. Hoosier Racing Tire Corp., et al.", (Case No. 09-3989), affirmed the lower court’s summary judgment decision that exclusive, sole-source contracts between race tire supplier Hoosier Racing Tire (Hoosier) and organizations that sanction motorsports races did not violate the antitrust laws.
The new vertical agreements block exemption regulation for distribution of goods and services (the "New Block Exemption") and vertical restraint guidelines (the "New Guidelines") were adopted by the European Commission on 20 April 2010.
Now more than ever it is important to protect the interests of your business and to make sure that these are not prejudiced by the acts of a competitor.
The Netherlands Competition Authority ("NMa") has imposed fines amounting to €20 million in total on Dutch media company Koninklijke Wegener N.V. and five of its executives.
On 30 June 2010, the French Competition Authority (the "Authority") stated that Google had implemented the content policy of its online advertising service, AdWords, in a way which lacked objectivity and transparency and resulted in discriminatory treatment.
On 19 July 2010, the German Federal Cartel Office ("FCO") decided to close the proceedings against the German branch of the US agency AP and the German news service ddp for not notifying their merger to the FCO.
On 14 July 2010 the High Court ruled that a restrictive provision in a confidentiality agreement was anti-competitive by both object and effect and breached Article 101 of the TFEU.
On 20 July 2010 the Commission announced that it had fined five animal feed phosphate producers a total of €175.6 million for price-fixing and market sharing activities in the EU animal feed market.
Recent actions by the Chinese price regulator, the National Development and Reform Commission ("NDRC"), indicate an increasing emphasis on enforcement against pricing and other competition law violations.
